Weather Data Spoofing Attacks on Rain-Adaptive Millimeter-Wave Frequency Selection in V2X Communication Networks
Abstract: Connected vehicles use millimeter-wave (mmWave) sidelinks for the data rates cooperative driving demands, and emerging designs select the carrier band from sensed rainfall. We show that this weather awareness is an attack surface: an adversary who spoofs only the rainfall input dictates the victim's carrier frequency, and through it its communication range, without transmitting on the channel. We evaluate the attack in MilliCar, an ns-3 module that runs the selected band as the real 3GPP NR V2X carrier with per-band propagation, beamforming, and blockage. Forcing the band up to 73 GHz holds an eight-vehicle platoon's reliable range at 38 m while the honest baseline doubles it to 82 m; forcing it down to 5 GHz sustains 97% long-range reception but collapses the transport block to a third and quadruples long-range latency to 12.5 ms. We then implement the defense the mechanism implies. Rain loss grows linearly with distance while path loss grows logarithmically, so a receiver that tests measured SINR against the attenuation its reported weather predicts flags force-up with 98% probability within 1.5 s at a 1% false-alarm rate, and re-selection then restores long-range reception from 60% to 75%. The same test is structurally blind to force-down, because the 5 GHz fallback is nearly rain-immune. An advecting rain cell that swings the local rate from 15 to 81 mm/h leaves every result unchanged. Weather-aware band selection therefore requires an authenticated meteorological input; physical cross-checking covers one half of the threat.